Last night we went to another 40th birthday party (oh, how we age) and once again successfully proved the rule “While South Africans dance, Germans hog the walls”. We believe ourselves to be the sole providers of Stimmung (high spirits, mood) in the entire Rhine-Neckar delta. Perhaps this is another reason why we must move to Berlin – in Berlin, Germans dance. So even though the music was unrecognisable remixes of remixes over a techno beat, we three South Africans gave it welly while 42 Germans sipped their Weizenbier and watched us with the same species antipathy as giraffe might watch warthogs having a loud mudfight in the only clean waterhole within 100 square kilometres. Why play when you can chew on acacia leaves?
We tried. Then we gave up. We left the 42 Germans sipping their beers, tapping their feet and watching the empty dance-floor. I think they were asking themselves where the warthogs had gone.
In the same vein of silliness, I picked up this meme from Badger. What you do is type your Web name into your Google search engine plus the word “needs” and see what absurdities Google offers. It’s better than astrology. According to Google:
Charlotte Needs You
Charlotte needs to go to the East Coast this fall
Charlotte needs to take action to develop a fan following
Charlotte needs to look beyond banks
Charlotte needs help finding words
Charlotte needs more spending on roads
Charlotte needs a firm but loving hand, encouraging her self-esteem (husband, take note)
Charlotte needs donations from people like you
Charlotte needs protection from Charlotte
Charlotte needs to craft a new vision
Charlotte needs someone to take over the daily tasks (ahem)
Charlotte needs a rich mix
Charlotte needs to turn to Blues Rock or R&B (last night’s DJ, take note)
But my best of all, really the all-out favourite is:
Who needs Kate Moss when there’s Charlotte?
Yeah. My point exactly.
What a lark. Lia is apparently some scientific program, so my name comes up with things like “Lia needs to spend high time latency to traverse all servers”. Certainly not on par with one-upting Kate Moss. Congrats.
I tried it and (surprise, surprise) with a name like Kit, I got: what every first aid Kit needs; Kit needs a face-lift. Not good for the self esteem at all!
Love the giraffe/warthog vision. It conjured up a vivid image of their expressions!
On dancing, I went to a club last night where an eighties cover band was blasting Bon Jovi and John Couger hits non-stop. This is definitly not my kind of music, but I was surprised to find that I knew most of the words and shouted them out with the rest of the crowd. Before I knew it I was dancing and making a fool of myself and loving every minute. Your Germans don’t know what they’re missing. Also,I’m going to try your meme to find out what I need.
Lia, sorry to hear your needs are so scientific. I wish you artistry and fun instead.
Kit too, apologies. I’m sure a face-lift is definitely not needed.
Ian, can’t wait to hear what you need. As to the John Cougar and Bon Jovi, ‘twould have been better than the techno twaddle of last night. I’m sure I would have also embarrassingly have known all the words.
Hi Charlotte. I tried the badger thing. Not particularly impressed. #4 on the list was Christopher needs a bullett in his brain…
Give a uncleish love to the kids and tell Tom I’ve still got a babalas from our 20year re-union.
Google told me: Tesha needs her friends. Well, I couldn’t agree more.
[...] June 10th, 2007 — Aphra Behn Here’s a silly thing I picked up from Charlotte. You type your web name into a search engine with the word “needs”. “Aphra [...]
[...] Can Dance If You Want To Jump to Comments I owe the Germans an apology. Last week I suggested that at parties they just stand around, wallflowering, while South Africans, despite the [...]
[...] tried my hand at the Google Meme I spotted at Charlotte’s Web: you type your web name in Google and add ‘needs’ after it, to see what Google thinks [...]
[...] in which blog I found this hilarious meme first. There was at least Cam, Becky, Emily, Charlotte (there, there, over there, and http://musingsfromthesofa.blogspot.com/2007/06/becky-needs.html). The rule [...]
[...] in which blog I found this hilarious meme first. There was at least Cam, Becky, Emily, Charlotte (there, there, over there, and out there). The rule is simple: I have to use google as a mirror, mirror [...]
Hah! I played the “Charlotte needs” game and found this first.